“I don’t believe it,” said Somerville the Briefless. “He’s been cracking his jokes, and some silly woman has taken him seriously.”

But the rumour grew into report, developed detail, lost all charm, expanded into plain recital of fact. Joey had not been seen within the Club for more than a week—in itself a deadly confirmation. The question became: Who was she—what was she like?

“It’s none of our set, or we should have heard something from her side before now,” argued acutely Somerville the Briefless.

“Some beastly kid who will invite us to dances and forget the supper,” feared Johnny Bulstrode, commonly called the Babe. “Old men always fall in love with young girls.”

“Forty,” explained severely Peter Hope, editor and part proprietor of Good Humour, “is not old.”

“Well, it isn’t young,” persisted Johnny.

“Good thing for you, Johnny, if it is a girl,” thought Jack Herring. “Somebody for you to play with. I often feel sorry for you, having nobody but grown-up people to talk to.”

“They do get a bit stodgy after a certain age,” agreed the Babe.

“I am hoping,” said Peter, “it will be some sensible, pleasant woman, a little over thirty. He is a dear fellow, Loveredge; and forty is a very good age for a man to marry.”

“Well, if I’m not married before I’m forty—” said the Babe.

“Oh, don’t you fret,” Jack Herring interrupted him—“a pretty boy like you! We will give a ball next season, and bring you out, if you’re good—get you off our hands in no time.”

It was August. Joey went away for his holiday without again entering the Club. The lady’s name was Henrietta Elizabeth Doone. It was said by the Morning Post that she was connected with the Doones of Gloucestershire.

“Doones of Gloucestershire—Doones of Gloucestershire,” mused Miss Ramsbotham, Society journalist, who wrote the weekly Letter to Clorinda, discussing the matter with Peter Hope in the editorial office of Good Humour. “Knew a Doon who kept a big secondhand store in Euston Road and called himself an auctioneer. He bought a small place in Gloucestershire and added an ‘e’ to his name. Wonder if it’s the same?”

“I had a cat called Elizabeth once,” said Peter Hope.

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.”

“No, of course not,” agreed Peter. “But I was rather fond of it. It was a quaint sort of animal, considered as a cat—would never speak to another cat, and hated being out after ten o’clock at night.”

“What happened to it?” demanded Miss Ramsbotham.

“Fell off a roof,” sighed Peter Hope. “Wasn’t used to them.”

The marriage took place abroad, at the English Church at Montreux. Mr. and Mrs. Loveredge returned at the end of September. The Autolycus Club subscribed to send a present of a punch-bowl, left cards, and waited with curiosity to see the bride. But no invitation arrived. Nor for a month was Joey himself seen within the Club. Then, one foggy afternoon, waking after a doze, with a cold cigar in his mouth, Jack Herring noticed he was not the only occupant of the smoking-room. In a far corner, near a window,